Cyrano de Bergerac
By
Edmond Rostand
Act II — Scenes 9-10

CYRANO (madly): It! . . . (Then calmly, business-like): It would amuse me! It is an enterprise to tempt a poet. Will you complete me, and let me complete you? You march victorious, — I go in your shadow; Let me be wit for you, be you my beauty!

CHRISTIAN: The letter, that she waits for even now! I never can . . .

CYRANO (taking out the letter he had written): See! Here it is — your letter!

CHRISTIAN: What?

CYRANO: Take it! Look, it wants but the address.

CHRISTIAN: But I . . .

CYRANO: Fear nothing. Send it. It will suit.

CHRISTIAN: But have you . . . ?

CYRANO: Oh! We have our pockets full, We poets, of love-letters, writ to Chloes, Daphnes — creations of our noddle-heads. Our lady-loves, — phantasms of our brains, — Dream-fancies blown into soap-bubbles! Come! Take it, and change feigned love-words into true; I breathed my sighs and moans haphazard-wise; Call all these wandering love-birds home to nest. You'll see that I was in these lettered lines, — Eloquent all the more, the less sincere! — Take it, and make an end!

CHRISTIAN: Were it not well To change some words? Written haphazard-wise, Will it fit Roxane?

CYRANO: 'Twill fit like a glove!

CHRISTIAN: But . . .

CYRANO: Ah, credulity of love! Roxane Will think each word inspired by herself!